No, Steam will outright tell you they'll delist you (or at least keep you from placement) if you offer a sale on a different store and don't match it on Steam. Emails saying as much outright were released on the last round of antitrust lawsuits for this exact reason.

Games are too cheap. There is, in fact, plenty of research to show that.

Steam is telling devs of all sizes to do a bunch of things. When it's something they like to advertise it typically gets coverage, like tweaks to Early Access info or other consumer-friendly stuff. When it's more controversial less so, like telling indie devs to invest on localizing to Chinese to go with Valve's China expansion plans or risk worse store placement.

I never once mentioned Epic. I am flabbergasted by how this Cult of the Gaben devolved into a weird console wars rehash between Epic and Steam. They're both big corporations, neither is your friend, both have valid strategies to get your business. Stop it.

Competition would have a hard time being dictated by shareholders given that at least two of the top contenders in the space are privately owned. Because, since that's your focus, yes, Epic is privately owned as well. Incidentally, GOG is one that is publicly owned and they are arguably the most pro-consumer player in this market.

I am not surprised at Steam having maneuvered its PR to position this way, but it's always a bit shocking how well they did it without a ton of traditional marketing involved. I don't think they're a bad service or a particularly terrible company, but much like Nintendo the are a major tech corporation that works like a major tech corporation and you forget that at your peril, especially as a developer.

They are certainly a good argument for how public ownership doesn't maximize value, because Steam is ridiculously undervalued by typical business analysts and they have maintained that status quo for many years and turned it into a sizeable yacht fleet. If anyhthing, Amazon guy's surprise surprises me.